


Close, close

by nutsforwinter



Series: Close [8]
Category: Fargo (2014)
Genre: Post-Series, past-tense Wrench
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-17
Updated: 2015-03-17
Packaged: 2018-03-18 08:29:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3563009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nutsforwinter/pseuds/nutsforwinter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Who was he?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Close, close

“We had a kind of little chat,” the voice came slithering like a snake through a tin tube.

His stomach churned in anticipation of the words that followed.

“...before I cut his throat.”

Malvo’s lips split into a nauseating sneer, revealing his square white teeth. Suddenly the black gaps between them seemed to grow larger and larger, only the black was bright red. Malvo’s face disappeared, and in its place was pale, pale skin, oozing death through the sickening grin gaping like a drowning fish. Warm arterial blood steamed as it gushed out in gentle spurts and pooled in the snow, dreadfully unaware that it was leaving its owner’s body as cold as the ice crystals forming in his beard.

He wanted to call out his name, but those eyes completely devoid of anything that once made Numbers human were boring holes into his own, and he was too terrified to speak.

Wrench forced his eyes open to find himself laying in a puddle of his own sweat. Dazed, he raised himself into a sitting position against the wall above his pillow, for a moment utterly disoriented. For the first time in months, he could feel the two rounds that policewoman had planted in him, the prickly jabbing causing him to wince. A hand at his wrist brought him back to his senses, and he turned to see the woman’s eyes looking at him worriedly. She shuffled out of the sheets to sit up beside him. When she made to brush aside a sweat-drenched lock from his forehead, he instinctively raised his hand, conscious once more of the barrier between him and the outside. She seemed relatively unfazed by the gesture, and merely drew herself closer without touching him.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

***

She had first appeared in a bar he had wandered into as part of his nightly ritual of downing enough drinks to keep him numb until the next night. Those eyes had found him through the musk, sweat, and dust, and their striking resemblance to Numbers’ had nearly sent him reeling out of his seat. It took a second longer than it should have to realize that it was not his late partner, and when he did, he wasted not one more in throwing himself headlong at the first of a series of hard liquor shots.

By the time she made her way over to him, the haze that gripped his senses left him incapable of resisting her touch, her pull, and least of all her eyes.

It didn't matter to him where they ended up or whose bed they were in, but they ended up fucking, the way _they_ used to fuck all those nights ago, giving vent to a desperate passion that had been hidden away for far too long. When he was finished, he remained crouched over her, eyes closed and breathing heavily under the burden of some ineffable shame. He was more startled than he had been in a long while when she reached up and kissed the saltiness from his eyelashes.

***

Wrench lifted her chin with his fingers and with his own gaze, compelled her to raise hers. A yellow street lamp snuck past the drapes and illuminated the large, deep brown - almost black - jewels bordered by long lashes, deeply set beneath heavy, slightly creased brows. He would never say what he saw in those eyes, which gave her a general air of perpetual concern for things that could never hope to be controlled, and which consequently awakened in him a familiar mixture of irritation and protective instinct.

No longer able to suppress the tremor in his hands, he let them fall into his lap. He was being sucked into the very eyes he had moments ago greedily snatched up.

She cupped her hands around his, pressing firmly to quell the shaking. She brought one of his hands upon her throat, wrapping his fingers around her larynx, while her eyes made sure Wrench was watching.

“Who was he?” he discerned.

An involuntary twitch released his hands from her grip, but her watchful eyes never let him look away. As he continued to look into those black holes, he pondered the question.

Who _was_ he?

He was a devoted worker. While he worked, he was an extortionist and a sadist, revelling in the power he had over those he made writhe in pain.

He was an interpreter. While he was with him, he was never at a loss for words.

He was a partner. He never left him alone, not in the true sense, not until the end.

He was brisk, rude, impatient, angry.

He was earnest, possessive, passionate.

He was not - _NOT, I repeat_ \- a ‘lover.’

He was a liar, but never false.

He was a killer.

He was a man.

Wrench opened his mouth and spoke the single word that encompassed everything Numbers had been to him. But his voice must have caught in his throat, because the woman’s eyebrows - Numbers’ eyebrows - furrowed into the expression of incomprehension with which Wrench was so well-versed. He thought he needed this woman, whoever she was, to know who Numbers was.

He raised both his hands bent at the knuckles and positioned his right hand before his left, before slowly bringing the former back to meet the latter. One look at her eyes and he knew she understood, but really it made no difference who did as long as he, as long as Numbers, knew. It was, after all, between the two of them.

Wrench repeated the sign, cradling his left hand in his right.

Because that was what Numbers had been and still was, so much so that he haunted Wrench’s dreams, and Wrench knew he would continue to do so for the years to come.

**Author's Note:**

> I apologize for the excessive cheesiness of this one.


End file.
